May 14, 2009

'Angels & Demons'--1 1/2 stars

What do you remember about the film version of “The Da Vinci Code,” exactly? I remember two things. One is Jean Reno’s surprising show of feeling when his character, the weaselly French police inspector, learned he had been betrayed. For a brief, shining moment all the plot mechanics mattered in human terms.

The other is the grim, tight-lipped face of Tom Hanks, a very fine actor and a bona fide movie star, struggling to humanize the role of Harvard symbologist and eternal gasbag Robert Langdon, as he cracked the riddle of the great-great-great-greatgreatgreat-granddaughter begotten by Christianity’s favorite son. Some secrets are destined to find the light. The origins of the professor’s academia-mullet “Da Vinci Code” haircut, meanwhile, remain a mystery.

That haircut is gone in “Angels & Demons,” director Ron Howard’s second film adaptation of a Dan Brown best seller, but three years later the major players are back for more grandiloquent hackery. Hanks returns to the dullest role of his career, under the direction of Howard, who takes the material as seriously as a kidney stone on the way out. Cinematographer Salvatore Totino again adds heaps of holy light and unholy shadow. Composer Hans Zimmer fulminates like a maniac, whipping up music that would be considered too much for “The Omen” and “Armageddon” put together. The frenzied choirs wail, the kettle drums pound, and the skulkers and schemers lurk in the Vatican awaiting selection of a new pope.

Members of the secret Illuminati brotherhood have stolen a canister of explosive antimatter from a Geneva particle physics facility, leaving a murdered scientist behind. Somewhere in Vatican City, four cardinals have been kidnapped, and they’re to be killed, one per hour. The antimatter’s scheduled to go blooey all over Vatican City, thus representing a triumph of Illuminati over the Catholics (old grudge match there; long story), and Langdon must locate the secret Path of Illumination and protect the lives of millions.

“Da Vinci” was a $758 million global hit. I have yet to run into anyone who really liked it. How could the follow-up be the same sort of lumbering mediocrity? These people are professionals!

Astonishingly, “Angels & Demons” is the same sort of lumbering mediocrity. It’s more violent than “Da Vinci,” which is something, I guess, and its narrative structure ensures a regular string of cliffhangers. But what turns the pages in print (or on a Kindle) doesn’t necessarily propel a story onscreen. Once again Hanks has nothing to play except generic concern, as he and his latest comely but sexual-tension-free partner in sleuthing (an Italian particle physicist played by Ayelet Zurer) run around Rome hunting for bloodthirsty members of the Illuminati. Nobody goes to movies like this for the dialogue, but still: “It’s a passageway that leads to the Vatican!” Then, bam! Langdon enters a new church, and again stops dead for more background on whatever the hell is helping him play this game of “Where’s Cardinal?” Hanks does what he can to add a little spice to lines such as “The chapel is Raphael ... but the statues are Bernini.”

Howard goes at “Angels & Demons” impersonally, which is depressing, because in his better movies—“Apollo 13” or “Frost/Nixon”—he knows his populism and sells it, respectably. The cast cannot be faulted, even if Hanks seems at odds with such a robotically functional leading role. The supporting ranks include Ewan McGregor as the late pontiff’s favorite acolyte, Stellan Skarsgard as the seething Swiss Guard security chief and Armin Mueller-Stahl, who plays a cardinal craftily right down the middle, so that we wonder if he’s a good cardinal or a bad cardinal. Even so, watching “Angels & Demons” is like being waterboarded by exposition. At one point Hanks can be glimpsed gasping for air, mid-endless-sentence. Has there ever been a flatter movie character played by a more innately likable star?

Comments

Beyond idiotic. Hanks's character (the hero!) was arrogant, obnoxious and stupid, hard to watch and harder to listen to. Tom, I know the money is good, but we all know that you and Rita don't need the money, what with Greek Wedding and Mamma Mia and everything else you two are involved in. Next time pick a good script with a likeable character. And try acting again. You can't be happy with this mess, can you?

One of the worst movies ever made. It made me laugh. Without meaning to.

No matter how anyone here tries to rehash it, it seems the Vatican was right. The movie is harmless. More than harmless. There are not words to describe how pointless it became. It couldn't influence the smallest child.

The only possible reason I can see for the few good reviews that appeared is that some people are desperate to like this film. Because it's Dan Brown. It's just GOT to be good.

If this is the best pop culture can summon up against Catholicism, it's time to re-evalute. Come out of your holes people. Because this is truly pathetic. Stop embarassing yourselves.

Before too many cafe philosophers poo-poo the critics for resoundingly and deservedly trouncing Angels & Demons, please look at this film’s stellar story. A nefarious sect persecuted long ago seeks long awaited vengeance against a religious faction currently in power. Sound familiar? It’s the recent Star Wars trilogy! They even cast Ewan Obi-Wan McGregor as a member of the Jedi High Council, or Vatican, if you prefer. So, fun popcorn flick? If you are the sort who thinks ground chuck is a feast, yes. Great story? Unless by great story you mean plagiarized…no. It’s the Phantom Menace without Jar Jar. I think I will pass, thanks.

I dont know who you talk to, but I loved the movie
Da Vinci Code. All my friends did too. I dont
follow your critics on movies. Your always wrong,
I dont know why the Tribune puts up with you
and your soooo wrong comments on great
movies. Their entertainment, not real life

Tom Hanks is the most over rated actor ever. He couldn't deliver a pizza let alone a line. And Dopie Ron Howard is nothing but a lefty hack of a director. It's no wonder that they could only produce feces.

To the forum member who said that the Angels and Demons are confused - we don't know which is which...THAT is the point. (roll eyes)

This movie is entertainment - if you are bothered by assaults against your religion, don't go. Help the protesters at Notre Dame and show the world that you never learned the most important message of your Lord - tolerance.

Plus, your absence will make it easier for me to get a seat when the show sels out again and again.

The biggest problem with the movie (apart from the scientific errors in the "plot" - destroying Vatican City with anti-matter? Get real, it would be faster and cheaper to build a space station and drop an asteroid on it. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone and all that.) is that they're confusing who the angels and demons are. Face it, this is just another "learning is EVIL" movie.

(Spoiler Alert). At the end of the movie Tom Hanks stares up at the moon, lets out a big sigh and says "I wonder who the next person to step on the moon will be?" to which his co-star replies, "Come again??"

There is an old adage: those that can, do. Those that can't, teach about it. The new addition is: those who can't do either become critics. I suggest you and your fellow esteemed critics get a real job, and perhaps then contribute something of value to society.

There's a number of reasons why the Da Vinci Code made so much money but it's certainly not because there's something good about it. It was an adventure movie that lacked adventure, a clever plot without cleverness, lining up dull, unsympathetic characters to exchange the latest gossip on religious sensationalism. We'll see how this one, which looks almost equally bad, will perform, with the one consolation that we won't have to suffer that terrible French actress again.

Richard of Miami's Illuminati bulb must have burned out. The definition of a day is the earth rotating one full revolution on it's axis. "Even if the definition of a day (which is a revolution around the Sun which wasn't still created!) " is the definition of a year.

Da Vinci Code was a "can't put this book down" kind of summer read. I remember the movie as being OK. Angels and Demons struck me as the rough draft for Da Vinci Code and a real bad one. I didn't bother to finish it. After one other awful Dan Brown book I figured out he is a one hit wonder that some how manages to keep in print.

I liked The DaVinci Code, a lot. Didn't get around to reading the book, so maybe that helped. Nay, it did help. As a heavy reader it's come to my awareness that few books transfer to the screen in a fashion that is going to please the majority of readers.

Can Robert Langdon solve the greatest mystery of all before it destroys Hollywood and perhaps all of southern California? See him try to figure out the esoteric symbols that used to be Tom Hanks' judgment and project-selection skills before it all goes Bang.

svengolly is what's politely termed a "less demanding viewer." Some of us expect more when we plunk down the dollars. Your favorable opinion of the first movie wasn't shared by most moviegoers. A big box office gross is no indicator of quality, nor is a small one.

The Da Vinci Code watered down the female lead and overall was painful to watch, even though I liked the book. I believe I will wait on Angels & Demons until it comes out on cable. I had hoped they would have learned from the first movie.

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